Antenna signal questions

Mounting Winegard HD7694P in the attic of one story house with tall
trees in neighborhood. All towers are 17 miles away and in 3 degree
range. Connected with RG6F quad shield. Have 3 stations where the
signal strength drops occasionally (below 4/6 bars) and I lose picture.
Would a preamp correct this? Would a larger antenna bring in a stronger
signal? Which solution would give the best results? I would prefer to
avoid mounting the antenna outside. Thanks.

goner wrote:
Mounting Winegard HD7694P in the attic of one story house with tall
trees in neighborhood. All towers are 17 miles away and in 3 degree
range. Connected with RG6F quad shield. Have 3 stations where the
signal strength drops occasionally (below 4/6 bars) and I lose picture.
Would a preamp correct this? Would a larger antenna bring in a stronger
signal? Which solution would give the best results? I would prefer to
avoid mounting the antenna outside. Thanks.

The best thing would be to mount it outside, but aside that,
an amplifier may help. It sounds like the roof is attenuating
the signal quite a bit, since you are so close. What kind of
roof is it? I assume you have tried moving the antenna around.

Chip

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wrote:
goner wrote:
Mounting Winegard HD7694P in the attic of one story house with tall
trees in neighborhood. All towers are 17 miles away and in 3 degree
range. Connected with RG6F quad shield. Have 3 stations where the
signal strength drops occasionally (below 4/6 bars) and I lose picture.
Would a preamp correct this? Would a larger antenna bring in a stronger
signal? Which solution would give the best results? I would prefer to
avoid mounting the antenna outside. Thanks.

The best thing would be to mount it outside, but aside that,
an amplifier may help. It sounds like the roof is attenuating
the signal quite a bit, since you are so close. What kind of
roof is it? I assume you have tried moving the antenna around.

Chip

The roof is asphalt over wood. Only have a 25' cable. Antenna is at
highest point in attic. Plan to get a 50' and 100' cable to try
different areas in the attic. Thanks.

On Jun 6, 2:28*pm, goner wrote:
Mounting Winegard HD7694P in the attic of one story house with tall
trees in neighborhood. *All towers are 17 miles away and in 3 degree
range. *Connected with RG6F quad shield. *Have 3 stations where the
signal strength drops occasionally (below 4/6 bars) and I lose picture.
Would a preamp correct this? Would a larger antenna bring in a stronger
signal? *Which solution would give the best results? *I would prefer to
avoid mounting the antenna outside. *Thanks.

How is the antenna mounted? I can only offer my experience. I have to
position my indoor antenna so as to place it in the best signal path.
That requires experimenting with the height. Higher is not really
better, just higher. Sometimes higher places the elements in a near
dead zone. And, strangely, I have to angle the antenna to conform to
the topography. I have the antenna facing NW, and the ground slopes
down in that direction, so, I have the antenna angled about 10 degrees
down. That's where it works. I'm receiving a number of stations that
conventional wisdom says I should not be getting.. But I would not if
I accepted that turning an antenna to target was sufficient. Given
that you have obstructions, probably not just trees, you probably need
to find a height and angle that matches a good signal path; the only
other option is to try to get above all obstructions, which might not
be practical.

On Jun 6, 11:28*am, goner wrote:
Mounting Winegard HD7694P in the attic of one story house with tall
trees in neighborhood. *All towers are 17 miles away and in 3
degree
range. *Connected with RG6F quad shield. *Have 3 stations where the
signal strength drops occasionally (below 4/6 bars) and I lose
picture.
Would a preamp correct this? Would a larger antenna bring in a
stronger
signal? *Which solution would give the best results? *I would
prefer to
avoid mounting the antenna outside. *Thanks.

Negative on the preamp. You have twice the gain of my antenna at 1/2
the distance AND I'm splitting it 4 ways with no problems at all. BUT,
I was talking to one of my fellow techs at work and he pointed out
that houses built in the 70's and 80's used foil backed fiberglass
insulation which makes DTV quite difficult as you're shielded by the
foil. It that is your problem, then getting the antenna outside may
cure your problems. If your problem is multipath, a preamp will simply
make it LOUD multipath with no net improvement. Even if you're _not_
looking 'through' the foil, it might be causing reflections (more of
that nasty multipath).

Fine antenna BTW. I've recommended it many times - always successful.

G²

goner wrote:

wrote:
goner wrote:
Mounting Winegard HD7694P in the attic of one story house with tall
trees in neighborhood. All towers are 17 miles away and in 3 degree
range. Connected with RG6F quad shield. Have 3 stations where the
signal strength drops occasionally (below 4/6 bars) and I lose picture.
Would a preamp correct this? Would a larger antenna bring in a stronger
signal? Which solution would give the best results? I would prefer to
avoid mounting the antenna outside. Thanks.

The best thing would be to mount it outside, but aside that,
an amplifier may help. It sounds like the roof is attenuating
the signal quite a bit, since you are so close. What kind of
roof is it? I assume you have tried moving the antenna around.

Chip

The roof is asphalt over wood. Only have a 25' cable. Antenna is at
highest point in attic. Plan to get a 50' and 100' cable to try
different areas in the attic. Thanks.

Is there any foil-faced insulation in the roof? If so you may have to
replace any in the path with kraft-faced.

The antenna you have should be good at 17 miles as long as none of the
stations are in the 2-6 range (real, not virtual). That antenna is
for channels 7 and up. Lower channels would require a larger antenna
which you'd probably have trouble fitting into your attic.

Although you don't want to mount the antenna outside, you might take
it outside for a test to see if reception improves dramatically. If
so, something in the attic may be blocking the signal more than wood
and asphalt do.

I doubt that an amplifier would help. If you do get one, make sure it
has a low noise figure, typically around 3-4 dB. If the manufacturer
doesn't state the noise figure, you can be pretty sure it's too high.
A high noise figure will make reception worse, not better, regardless
of gain. Channel Master and Winegard make good amps in the $50-$80
range. The CM7777 is often recommended.

Del Mibbler

On Sun, 06 Jun 2010 13:28:03 -0500, goner wrote:

Mounting Winegard HD7694P in the attic of one story house with tall
trees in neighborhood. All towers are 17 miles away and in 3 degree
range. Connected with RG6F quad shield. Have 3 stations where the
signal strength drops occasionally (below 4/6 bars) and I lose picture.
Would a preamp correct this? Would a larger antenna bring in a stronger
signal? Which solution would give the best results? I would prefer to
avoid mounting the antenna outside. Thanks.

Yagi style antennas seem to have a very narrow reception tolerance in my
experiences. And the one you got is not a very big one at that. I'd
suggest replacing the antenna with something like a Channel Master
4228HD. It works fine here in the attic at over 40 miles. You shouldn't
need an amp unless you're feeding 4 or more TV tuners.

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On Jun 6, 2:28*pm, goner wrote:
Mounting Winegard HD7694P in the attic of one story house with tall
trees in neighborhood. *All towers are 17 miles away and in 3 degree
range. *Connected with RG6F quad shield. *Have 3 stations where the
signal strength drops occasionally (below 4/6 bars) and I lose picture.
Would a preamp correct this? Would a larger antenna bring in a stronger
signal? *Which solution would give the best results? *I would prefer to
avoid mounting the antenna outside. *Thanks.

It would be best if there was a way you can check the signal in the
attic with a portable TV or laptop, that way you can tell if you get a
strong signal at the antenna, then an amp would help, otherwise if
your signal is weak at the antenna, an amp is not going to help you.
I had my Radio Shack VU-75 antenna in the attic for the longest time
feeding just 1 TV, trying to avoid putting it outside, and I would get
dropouts and sometime no signal at all. Finally I got fed up, and just
mounted it outside on the chimney. I'm glad I did. Now my signal
strength meter is pegged, and I picked up a lot of other channels.
Plus the best part is I'm feeding 3 TV's with no amp, and still a lot
of signal strength to spare.
Just something to consider, especially if you have a lot of trees
around you.

On 6/6/2010 1:28 PM, goner wrote:
Mounting Winegard HD7694P in the attic of one story house with tall
trees in neighborhood. All towers are 17 miles away and in 3 degree
range. Connected with RG6F quad shield. Have 3 stations where the signal
strength drops occasionally (below 4/6 bars) and I lose picture. Would a
preamp correct this? Would a larger antenna bring in a stronger signal?
Which solution would give the best results? I would prefer to avoid
mounting the antenna outside. Thanks.

I have a somewhat similar situation. But I have a very good idea why
my signal drops fairly regularly. There is a freeway about a quarter
of a mile away, between me and the transmitters. There is also a
4 story building just off to the side. I figure it is multipath when
a truck goes by on the freeway. Now I also have a UHF antenna
pointed off at about 90 degrees from the VHF antenna and it also
loses signal, but not nearly as much. I figure that that is from
planes landing at the airport a mile or 2 off to the side of the
path to that transmitter. So check to see if there is something
that might be throwing a little interference in your signal path.

Bill

Del Mibbler [email protected] wrote in
:

goner wrote:

wrote:
goner wrote:
Mounting Winegard HD7694P in the attic of one story house with tall
trees in neighborhood. All towers are 17 miles away and in 3
degree range. Connected with RG6F quad shield. Have 3 stations
where the signal strength drops occasionally (below 4/6 bars) and I
lose picture. Would a preamp correct this? Would a larger antenna
bring in a stronger signal? Which solution would give the best
results? I would prefer to avoid mounting the antenna outside.
Thanks.

The best thing would be to mount it outside, but aside that,
an amplifier may help. It sounds like the roof is attenuating
the signal quite a bit, since you are so close. What kind of
roof is it? I assume you have tried moving the antenna around.

Chip

The roof is asphalt over wood. Only have a 25' cable. Antenna is at
highest point in attic. Plan to get a 50' and 100' cable to try
different areas in the attic. Thanks.

Is there any foil-faced insulation in the roof? If so you may have to
replace any in the path with kraft-faced.

The antenna you have should be good at 17 miles as long as none of the
stations are in the 2-6 range (real, not virtual). That antenna is
for channels 7 and up. Lower channels would require a larger antenna
which you'd probably have trouble fitting into your attic.

Although you don't want to mount the antenna outside, you might take
it outside for a test to see if reception improves dramatically. If
so, something in the attic may be blocking the signal more than wood
and asphalt do.

I doubt that an amplifier would help. If you do get one, make sure it
has a low noise figure, typically around 3-4 dB. If the manufacturer
doesn't state the noise figure, you can be pretty sure it's too high.
A high noise figure will make reception worse, not better, regardless
of gain. Channel Master and Winegard make good amps in the $50-$80
range. The CM7777 is often recommended.

Yes and an amp designed to be mounted right at the antenna is far better
than one at the other end of the feedline.



--
Dave Oldridge+
ICQ 454777283